BMH Week 2; Day 4

Sunday, 4 August 2013

Thursday morning is the dreaded letter writing time where we
each sit down and write letters to each other. This week of camp was especially
hard as I would be saying goodbye to kids I know better than any others. I
wrote three letters, one for each kid and my translators helped them write
letters to me. I then decided to write short letters for all the Eagles Wings 6
kids who I lived with. I’m not gonna lie, I did well up a bit when writing
Wendy’s.

One moment that stood out was that Wendy asked me if I’m
going back to 6. I clarified by asking if she meant the 6th floor,
where my room was. No she meant back to Eagles Wings 6. My heart fell. I had to
tell her that no I couldn’t go back and that I was going home to Ireland on
Monday. Her little face looked so sad almost like she would cry but thankfully
her buddy pulled her away for the next activity. Someday I wont have to say
goodbye like that.

In the afternoon we did life-charts. This is where we sit
down as a family group and talk about our lives, sharing about both the high
points and the low points. So I started by sharing about my life then one of
the kids went. Weird thing though was that Barry seemed to have forgotten a lot
of his story since we did it last year. Either that or he wasn’t sharing. They
just said they were happy, which I do believe for the most part. At Eagles
Wings they do have happy lives.

Later on we had swim time. Zach is becoming a little more
comfortable going in the water. He no longer says he doesn’t want to swim. And
will be held by people other then me! One of the younger boys Bill wouldn’t go
in the water all week. In fact he wouldn’t even take off his shoes or sit
beside the pool. So I made it my mission to get him in the water and for him to
see how fun it can be.So I sat down
beside him and got him to take his shoes off. One step at a time! Then we went
and sat beside the water and after a minute or two I picked him up and slipped
in the water. He clung so tight to my neck but didn’t shout or scream to get
out. We walked around for a short while and slowly got used to the water. After
a few minutes he was happily squirting people with a water gun! He even went to
another volunteer who held him for the rest of the time as Zach was calling for
me!

That evening we had a big celebration party! It was so much
fun! It was all centred around the theme of the week which was CHOSEN. So we
dressed them all up in cool outfit and then each volunteer called their child
up one by one and crowned them. Everyone loved it! It was their chance to be
special! We had some yummy cake to finish off the party.

Thursday night was a little sad and you could feel it in the
atmosphere of the volunteer meeting that evening. Everyone knew it was the last
night and no one wanted it to be over. We made bed time even more special. We had
lots of fun with glow sticks in the dark with barry, zach and one of the other
boys. They LOVED it!! We let them stay up really late chatting, joking around
and having fun! Saying goodnight and tucking them in was sad as it would be the
last time I would do that.